I wish you didn’t believe in Heaven.
I’m cool with the “Family Reunion” aspect but you’ve put “ON-HOLD” a LOT of things that should be happening in your world, HERE AND NOW!!!
RESOLVE CONFLICTS
FORGIVE
RESTORE
HAVE PERFECT PEACE
WALK IN LOVE WITH EVERYONE
STOP JUDGING AND BEING JUDGED
HAVE FULL JOY
EMBRACE ETERNAL LIFE
NOW. RIGHT NOW. HERE. <3 Robert Rutherford

Q: If we’ve already been healed, how come we’re still sick?
A: Because you don’t believe you’ve been healed.
[That’s called “Unbelief”]
Q: How can I get over it?
A: Act like the healed person that you really are.

When people say “Jesus took what you deserve.” Really? At what age does a person deserve to be flogged and nailed to a cross? 7 years old? 10? No? How about the dreadful “age of accountability”? 12? So a 12 year old kid deserves to be flogged and nailed to a cross? No? How about 90? Does a kindly old lady deserve to be flogged and nailed to a cross? At what age do you deserve this? This is not how the atonement works nor is it what the early church believed about the cross. Also, people who say “Jesus took what you deserve” usually say you deserve eternal conscious torment, but being flogged and crucified is not eternal conscious torment, so there’s another wrench thrown in the spokes of that whole paradigm. At some point when you start actually thinking about this stuff, you start realizing none of it makes sense and you go running back to the early church fathers for a dose of some better news about the gospel.

~ Jacob M. Wright

ARE YOU GROWING, OR HAVE YOU FULLY GROWN IN YOUR SPIRITUAL APPREHENSION?
In your walk with Jesus, in your study of the word, did you or did you not glean understanding little by little, step by step, here a little there a little? And did you not find many corrections along the way where God was finally able to deal with you on a higher level because you had finally completed the levels leading up to it? Do you know that it is human nature to forget the levels up to it and just expect everyone to measure up to your new level, forgetting that other people have been learning differently than you and not necessarily in an inferior way? They have been learning similar lessons from a whole different vantage point and for all we know they could be way ahead of you!! When you get a great and golden new insight do you ever think just how naive you were about 10 seconds ago? and when you’re busy with self congratulation did it ever occur to you that the other person may be sailing right past you at this very moment? You thought you had everything all figured out and suddenly you realize that something no longer makes sense. This would be a very good time for you to remember that you are dealing with the realm of the spiritual and we are all mere mortals trying to comprehend the incomprehensible!!!

When a person
Faces a challenge
Big or small
By trusting God
All the way
He’s not surprised
To receive
A perfect answer.
His faith begins
To soar
His confidence too.
Next time
He trusts again
And again and again.
He becomes filled
With a kind of
God confidence
And no longer needs
To prove himself
When all that there is
Is God.

Are you GOING TO be happy? WILL you be coming into joy? WHEN you REACH a foreseeable goal, WILL you BE just about ready to START to claim your joy?

WHEN ???

Paul and Silas, in prison, facing execution, were so joyful, doing the will of the Lord, THEY BEGAN SINGING !!!

S ▪ I ▪ N ▪ G ▪ I ▪ N ▪ G !!!!!!!

Such Was Their Joy !!

What we don’t know is quite phenomenal. Did Paul ever know why his thorn couldn’t have been removed and still leave him to do greater works? I think his calling was entirely fulfilled, as can be said for most sincere followers of Jesus. We can imagine what we could do with more money, better health, etc., but that’s a bottom-up approach. A better approach? Get a good, clear glimpse of Jesus and then hold onto it for dear life because that’s when life really becomes dear, healings happen, just the right funds for just the right purposes … happen.

I’ve never heard a sufficient answer to the age old “problem of evil.” And it isn’t for lack of searching or listening, believe me. Even bringing “the fall” into the equation only serves to indict God, and make him the cause, as he should have seen it coming, what with being omniscient and all. What’s worse, is that “God,” and by that I mean those who think they speak for him, then indicts you for being related to the naked guy who ate the fruit, and therefore just as guilty as he. At the end of the day, your suffering is the fault of a “God” who blames you. All of these attempts at answers are a playing of the blame game, and none of them actually work to relieve pain or suffering.

The only answer I see as sufficient is the one in which we hear God in the cry of the afflicted, and then rush in to weep with those who weep, and mourn with those who mourn. Waxing eloquent in attempts to counter the arguments of critics, and to account for the existence of evil is foolish. There is no sufficient answer. Evil is real. Sure, it has no ontology, or being of its own, but it’s real, nonetheless. It’s a problem. And the only solution is you and I, following the example of the person of Jesus, in love.

The answer to the problem of evil lies not in an explanation, but in following the way of Jesus; in loving and serving a hurting, pain stricken, and suffering humanity.
~ Jeff Turner

JEFF TURNER’S POST:
God never has, and never will use a bullet to solve a problem. He does not call upon the psychotic to dispense his wrath, or punish sin. If he did, any outrage we felt at the actions of such individuals would be a form of rebellion. But all images of the divine who do such things I’ll gladly join a rebellion against.
Jeff Turner

It took me a couple of times reading this to understand what you’re saying. I think I agree, provided that the problem to be solved is dispensing wrath or punishing sin. Aren’t there other problems that can be solved with a bullet? For example, taking out the psychotic who imagine themselves as called to dispense wrath or punish sin before they get very far along in actually doing it?
Robert Ingle

Not sure how helpful this may or may not be, but I’ll take a stab at it. Man, with limited knowledge of the divine nature, reluctantly uses temporary expedients, knowing full well that they are abhorrent to God. Of course the quickest and best way to realize the perfection of Christ in us is to turn our full attention to Him and keep it there. In a specific instance, shooting a killer while he’s reloading is far preferable to … well, you get the picture. But what I think we’re here for is to come away with the conviction that turning wholeheartedly to God within ushers us instantaneously to His perfect kingdom.
RJS

David Duncan:
What is it that is blinding Christians today from realizing that Jesus has already brought the kingdom and that the kingdom is here?
Bad Teaching. What version of the new covenant have you been taught?

RJS:
I think that man’s tendency to want to reduce God Almighty in any way is the culprit. Human apprehension can reach to the stars but God Himself cannot be compelled to do anything, given that He has done all that needs to be done.